Upgrade Captivate to Gingerbread

Upgrade Captivate to Gingerbread

My captivate is running 2.2 at the present. From viewing posts, it looks like there has been a Gingerbread upgrade available, although not without problems. I wasn't notified of this one by ATT like I was with Froyo, and a mini kies program was pushed to me. Is there a 2.3 upgrade available, and would anyone recommend upgrading to it? My Froyo works flawlessly, but I understand battery usage/management and task management is better with Gingerbread.

Re: Upgrade Captivate to Gingerbread

Joe, I would definitely recommend upgrading to 2.3.5 on the Captivate. The system speed and battery life are greatly enhanced due to the improved Dalvik performance. There are really too many pro's and no con's that I know of. The only down side is that it's best to do a full factory reset both prior to updating and again after the update. That's what I always do and have 0 issues on GB.

Re: Upgrade Captivate to Gingerbread

I upgraded two Captivate phones to Gingerbread 2.3.5, from the official Samsung upgrade. One word - Horrible. I am pulling my hair for this. I had upgraded to Froyo using official ATT release, and waited patiently for Gingerbread. Totally disappointed.

Freezes, crashes, tethering application crashes.. . Feel like slapping the Samsung testing team for doing this lousy release. I love Android, and am will never go to iphone. But I can certainly change from Samsung to maybe HTC or LG..

I might go for factory reset.. crap. It is like thinking you won a lottery, only to find out it was a scam !!!

Re: Upgrade Captivate to Gingerbread

Factory reset cleared up my tethering force closes. However, my Captivate still freezes once a day or so. The screen stays on but never reacts to anything.

There are three "resets" on can do. Factory reset is the first one. The third and most destructive is called "GSM Reset". The second one is in between the two. See http://capfaq.com/w/Resetting/Restoring.

If my problems persist I will try the GSM reset. I have never had to do a GSM reset but it may be time.

I do like Gingerbread. The icons are crisper, Mail is much nicer.

Android phone definitely need work in the upgrade department. That is where the iPhone shines.

Re: Upgrade Captivate to Gingerbread

I ended up doing a GSM Reset and that seems to have resolved the "freezes". GSM Reset is itself easy, but readding all the applications is time consuming (though easy too).

Overall 2.3.5 is much better.

Icons are crisper

email client is much much better

you can download apps from non market sources (e.g. Amazon Market)

faster

the cut/paste/select is much better

I can no add line breaks in the email signature and have it work!

Probably lots of internal things in the OS that I dont see!

I have one issue that seems to be a bug in Gingerbread. When I play music and a notification (e.g. for email) is triggered, the media volume is muted (set to 0) and does not reset when the notification sound is over.

Re: Upgrade Captivate to Gingerbread

I take back what I said about freezing. My phone frooze again this morning after about 2.5 days of uptime. GSM Reset did not fix anything. I have seen many others on other forums that have the same issue.

Will call ATT and Samsung latter today but dont expect them to do anything. Samsung has stated in the past to send the phone in, but what is one today with a phone!

Re: Upgrade Captivate to Gingerbread

I just upgraded mine from 2.1 to 2.3.3 last night. (I think it was 2.3.3, I didn't see the full version number and I've read conflicting reports about 2.3.5 being released for the Captivate). Email has crashed on me, forcing me to remove the battery. The tethering app keeps bombing as well and it's DISABLED on my phone. Boot times are slow. I'm doing a reset (vol up/vol down/power) and that process (17 minutes and going) might hopefully fix some of this. But this is bad. 2.1 wasn't perfect, but I did not have these massive problems. Pity I can't go back... Of course, I've a number of months before I qualify for a new device. Do I go Galaxy 2 or iPhone? Or another Android device, from a brand that has both a good screen and a good reputation for system updates?

Re: Upgrade Captivate to Gingerbread

iPhone, in my opinion, is a much better product and is somewhat dumb (could not use the i word!) proof. It will be interesting to see what iPhone 5 is. For the Android, it takes forever to get an upgrade, and then it does not work well. I dont see many bug fix patches or security fixes either. There should be!

I called Samsung today {removed for safety} to register my frustrations with the freezes. They logged the info, said to do a factory reset, and NOT to install other apps. They said that some app may not be ready for 2.3.5. I dont believe that and wont be doing a factory reset unless the issue gets worse.

I too am up for renewal in a few months. I probably will give Samsung one more chance with Galaxy S 2 or an ICS version from whatever manufacturer has them available mid Summer. If the Android does not work, then it will be an iPhone in 2 years.

Google just has to take control of the process and make sure the hardware manufactures and ATT stay on top of updates. I do understand that ATT has nothing to gain by making updates available and more to gain by not doing updates. No calls to the call center when there are issues with the upgrade.

Re: Upgrade Captivate to Gingerbread

iPhone, in my opinion, is a much better product and is somewhat dumb (could not use the i word!) proof. It will be interesting to see what iPhone 5 is. For the Android, it takes forever to get an upgrade, and then it does not work well. I dont see many bug fix patches or security fixes either. There should be!

I called Samsung today {removed for safety} to register my frustrations with the freezes. They logged the info, said to do a factory reset, and NOT to install other apps. They said that some app may not be ready for 2.3.5. I dont believe that and wont be doing a factory reset unless the issue gets worse.

I too am up for renewal in a few months. I probably will give Samsung one more chance with Galaxy S 2 or an ICS version from whatever manufacturer has them available mid Summer. If the Android does not work, then it will be an iPhone in 2 years.

Google just has to take control of the process and make sure the hardware manufactures and ATT stay on top of updates. I do understand that ATT has nothing to gain by making updates available and more to gain by not doing updates. No calls to the call center when there are issues with the upgrade.

I agree. I never thought I'd actually say it, but I think I might drop both of my phones including my Android Captivate and going to a plain iPhone 4 altogether. Android is so unique and I really like it, but I'm finding more and more reasons why I should just switch to an iPhone, instead.

Re: Upgrade Captivate to Gingerbread

The hard reset is done. Email worked again. I then used MyBackup Pro to reinstall apps and settings. So far so good, but if I have problems I will reinstall all apps from scratch, without the data. But post-reboot email still works fine. My next phone might be an iPhone 5. Or maybe not; once I get used to the differences in Android, it'll get easier. And the iPhone's big downfall is that it won't download in the background (unless iOS5 fixes that...)